Farmer's fossil find may be new dinosaur species

Photo: West China City Daily

A large number of dinosaur fossils were unearthed recently by a farmer during the construction of a house in Zigong, Southwest China's Sichuan province

Cai Hangli called experts at the local Zigong Dinosaur Museum twice to excavate the 20-square-meter plot after he discovered .strange stones. while digging trenches for the foundations of his house on October 13 and October 22.

Experts identified the recovered rib, limb and other bone fossils as once belonging to a Sauropod, which could grow to more than 50 meters long, and date back to the Jurassic Period over 150 million years ago.

An tooth fossil from an unidentified predatory dinosaur dating from around the same era was also found on the site.

Wan Yi, the curator of the museum, said the fossils may belong to a species of Saurapods previously unknown to paleontologists.

Scientists suggest that this particular deposit of fossils may have been created when the bodies of dinosaurs were brought to the area in a gigantic tidal wave.